Title: First ThroughPairing/characters: Matt, GideonGenre: future!fic angstSummary: Matt prepares to go through the anomaly to start his mission. Author's Note Beta'd by Fredbassett. Another fic in my P/P/F 'verse. Not much else to say, except that when you read this you might realise it is technically in the same verse as my other story Past/Present/Future. Enjoy anyhows. Mistakes are my own.

“Where are you boy? Why are you hiding?”

Matt Anderson was hiding because he didn’t want to die. He didn’t want his father to die either, despite the fact that he was going to. The anger and grief choked the young teen at the same time he thought about his father’s fate, but he had to concentrate. One slip, one mistake and he would fail not only his father, but the whole world.

Matt had tried to make sense of this maze, but it appeared that the sea of anomalies was changing every minute. He saw several disappear and new ones form before his eyes, but there was no sign of his pursuers. Matt was shaking, everything was at stake here, lives were relying on him.

He tried not to think of his friends who were now dead. He tried not to think of how the man had brutally ended their lives. Instead he focused on the fact that the man was dead, and on the device that was showing him the way out.

The wind was picking up, getting stronger and the change would prove difficult to get to the one anomaly he and his father needed.

“I’ll cover you.”

The hand on his shoulder squeezed affectionately and then to his surprise there was a sweet lingering kiss to his cheek. He looked round and she was right there, as if she had never left. She kissed him again, this time making her lips linger before pulling away to check her guns.

“Come with us,” he begged, taking hold of her dirty and bloodied hand and pressing her fingers to his lips. “Please. Everyone else is dead and so is Ackley. You said yourself that you came here to change the past… so come with us. Help me change the now.”

“Including him?”

She looked round to where the colonel was talking softly to Matt’s father. The scarred solider was looking more serious than normal, whispering to Gideon and checking his vitals at the same time.

“You think I hate your husband?” Matt said turning back to her. He was going to lie, but she knew him all too well and that smile simply told him not to bother. “Okay… yeah. I hate the fact that he’s married to you… the guy is… he’s annoying.”

“Immensely so,” she agreed. “But you like him. I can tell. So?”

“Yes! Okay! So! Why can’t the two of you come back with me and my da? You can help us with this mission you started. You can tell me what….”

She shook her head and kissed him again on the cheek. She seemed sad.

“You know we can’t. We have to find my son. Besides, we don’t belong in that time.”

Matt wasn’t going to question as to why she said “my” son and not “our” because Matt had known not to ask about that. The couple hadn’t said much of anything on their past or where they had come from, instead they constantly made sure that Matt was ready. They trained him and his friends for this very moment… She had said he was special. But then so had Ackley.

“ANDERSON!” The angry yell of his name echoed throughout the valley and it jolted Matt out of his daze. “Show yourself! Come out and we can settle this amicably!”

By amicably, Matt knew the man meant his death. When it was announced to the community back home that they were going back to the past to prevent the disaster, the attempts on their lives had come in droves from Ackley’s followers. Though for his father… it was already too late.

“Go! Go now!”

Matt forgot that he hadn’t been keeping an eye on the device in his hands like should have been. He didn’t see the anomaly beacon flashing on the screen and when he looked round, his father was already urging him to lead the way with frantic waves of his hands.

“Hurry Matthew! Hurry!”

He noticed that she had moved away from him whilst he was in his daydream , laying down cover fire with her two favourite guns and now the colonel was tugging on the back of Matt’s shirt and dragging him up off his feet so he would stand by his father.

“Go, Matt!” The colonel barked. “Take your father and head to that anomaly!”

Matt was stunned. The colonel had never called him by his first name before.

“I said go! Get out of here, because that anomaly is not going to last much longer.”

The pinching of grubby oily fingers at his face forced Matt to look up at the colonel and for the first time in two years, there was a look of concern, worry—or was it affection?—in the man’s dark brown eyes.

“Don’t worry about us, Matt. We’ll be fine."

The colonel leaned down and to Matt’s utter shock, planted a hard kiss on his forehead. He then smiled as if he hadn’t done it, patted Gideon on the arm and turned away to join his wife. The colonel effortlessly withdrew both the shotguns strapped to his back and began firing towards their pursuers. She went with him, causing the distraction that Matt and his father so desperately needed.

He wished they could’ve come with them. He felt suddenly lost and vulnerable knowing that he wasn’t going to have their support in the new world, but he wasn’t going to let them down, not after everything they had done for him.

Matt didn’t realise he had been running until he felt his father stumble behind him. He didn’t think about helping his father along, he just did it, pulling him up from the grass and assisting him with frantic pulls on his arm. Gideon was thankfully still quite strong and was able to continue, but Matt couldn’t help but dwell on what would eventually happen.

“Keep going!”

They ran so hard that Matt barely managed to stop them from going through the wrong anomalies, but when the wailing of the AD signalled they were upon the one they needed he managed to stop himself and catch his father, both of them holding on to each other, panting for breath.

The anomaly was fading… growing weak.

“Go on, Matthew! Go through!”

Matt took one last look over his shoulder at the sea of anomalies and in the distance he watched the colonel and his wife pulling off the perfect distraction. As they drew out the others, Matt was in awe at how they flawlessly fought by each other’s side, as he always had been.

“Son! We have to go!”

Matt turned away and looked to the anomaly that would change his life forever. He took in some deep breaths and stepped through, into the Garden of Eden.